Pushing, shoving gives way to scuffles on Black Friday

Friday

Nov 25, 2011 at 4:35 PMNov 25, 2011 at 4:38 PM

Large crowds waited for hours on Black Friday to get some of the best prices of the year on the busiest shopping day of the year. In some cases, shopping got off to an earlier start this year with people already gathering at Walmart stores by Thursday afternoon. Some of Walmart’s sales started at 10 p.m. Thursday.

BY LISA ROGERSTimes Staff Writer

Large crowds waited for hours on Black Friday to get some of the best prices of the year on the busiest shopping day of the year. In some cases, shopping got off to an earlier start this year with people already gathering at Walmart stores by Thursday afternoon. Some of Walmart’s sales started at 10 p.m. Thursday.Walmart’s traditional sale-day prices on hot-ticket items like televisions, computers and small electronics, prompted some customers to lose patience.At least one shopper at the Attalla Walmart went to the hospital for treatment after being bitten during a scuffle over some small electronics, officials said.There also were a few fights that possibly caused a nose injury and bruised ribs. Some of the madness in Attalla captured on video already was on YouTube Friday morning.“We had a lot of accidents, people biting each other,” an employee said. “It was a free-for-all.”There were random acts at Walmart and other stores across the country. A woman in Los Angeles used pepper spray to keep other customers away from the merchandise she was planning to buy.At the East Gadsden Walmart, the most craziness was over a $35 touchscreen phone, said Brantley Bishop, an agent with the Etowah County Drug Enforcement Unit who, along with some other agents, worked off duty as security for the store.Some customers had been in line at the stack of 50 shrink-wrapped phones for several hours. Close to the time for the sale, customers were pushing and shoving and security personnel ended up handing the phones to the customers.“We had to tell them if they started pushing and shoving, they wouldn’t get a phone,” Bishop said.He said most of the bigger items required a ticket and those sales were orderly and without incident.The phones did not require a ticket because store personnel apparently did not anticipate the item’s popularity, Bishop said.Bishop said at about 12 minutes before 10 on Thursday, customers were in a frenzy.“Somebody, somewhere said something and you could hear it all start,” he said. “It was like a domino reaction and the sound just spread across the store. People were grabbing and slinging things.”By 8 p.m., the store was full of people waiting for the sales to start.Bishop has worked security for Black Friday shopping for six years and said there were fewer problems overall with the Walmart sales beginning several hours earlier than in years past.“There are always some little incidents,” he said. “This just seems to make some people do some things they ordinarily would not do.”Despite large crowds at the Gadsden Mall, there were no physical incidents, Carver Boynton, general manager at the mall, said.“Any incidents we had were minor and were quickly resolved,” she said. “With that many people, there is always the potential for some level of frustration.”Boynton said mall security, Gadsden Police Department and the Belk loss prevention officers worked together to keep order at the mall.She said Gadsden police officers drove marked patrol cars and those were parked outside.“We had that presence outside before customers even went inside,” Boynton said, adding that the Gadsden officers in uniforms and other security officers were dressed so that they were readily identifiable.“That presence makes a difference,” she said.

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